She'll give out kudos for someone that hit their 5 or 10%, or that someone lost 5 pounds, but it's not that raise your hand if you had a loss this week, and then people would share their loss amount. To me (and others) that is very motivating. I suppose I could be carrying my likes from other meetings and should understand that each leader has their own ways, but I really liked my other leaders.
I'm too lazy to drive the 30+ minutes for the other meeting. Although that would be a morning meeting which I prefer more. Maybe I'll check it out tomorrow.
Aha. So it would be like the Phoenix meeting we went to; for me, that wouldn't be extra motivating. But if it's what you're used to, then I can see missing it. The Phoenix meeting members REALLY liked it!
Are meetings worth the extra money? It would be an extra $22 a month to be able to go to meetings, and I've heard mixed reviews.
For me and DH, they are worth it. We have not been able to do it in any way other than going to meetings. Now, to be honest we have never tried doing the etools without the meetings, but I don't
think it would work for us. When it's just the two of us, we are far more likely to encourage extra eating...but if we feel the power of our fellow meeting-people behind us, we're much better.
I think I'm gonna see how the first month goes on my own. I'm fairly motivated right now (and sore from my first real workout since high school). If I start struggling, I'll upgrade.
Another question. Will it fail if I eat less points than I'm assigned per day? I have a lot and I don't want to eat for the sake of having points.
Just know that working out at first, or increasing your workouts even once established, can cause *temporary* gains. In order to heal the muscles, the body holds on to water. so an increase in workouts can cause water weight. I try to combat it with drinking extra water, but I'm not always successful. When I started increasing my runs, it happened again. No biggie when you know what's happening and why!
You need to eat your Daily points, YES. But it's up to you if you wish to eat Weeklies and/or Activity points.
At the beginning, people can feel really full. They are LOVING the veggies and the fruits, and they can be really full eating those great foods. Over time, though, many people don't find it to feel as filling as it once did. Heck, DH started at the max points, which I believe is 71, and at first he could barely eat those points. It did not help that he was at a weight where he also needed to eat NINE minimum servings of fruits and veggies. But over time, his stomach got used to it, and he started eating Weeklies (and still lost).
If you're ever in a pinch, and the only info you have about a food is its calories, the very simple calculation is that it's 40 cals per point. So you can see that your Daily points don't add up to a high number of calories. And that's why we need to eat those Dailies.
For me, pretty soon after starting, I added in Weeklies, to keep my stomach and brain happy and not deprived. Then after I got a heart rate monitor, I started eating my Activity Points. (when using a HR monitor, I estimate 80 calories per AP if you are eating the Activity Points...some use 100 cal/AP...so there's a difference built in with either of those numbers...you aren't just eating what you burned...you're eating half of what you burned, basically).
For me, I have to keep tummy and mind happy and filled and fulfilled, or I go to a bad place where I eat too many naughty things, then stop tracking, then feel guilty, eat more, continue to not track, and then finally I quit. I've done that before, back when I thought the extra points were evil or cheating or just something for weak people. (those were MY thoughts, I'm not saying that anyone here thinks those things!)
So for me it was really important this time, to eat the "extra" points. I finally realized (and this is my WW motto) that life isn't fair and I'll never be able to eat ALL I truly want while also looking how I want to look. So this *has to be* sustainable for me, and to stick with 26 points (plus Maintenance points once I hit that stage), for me, won't be sustainable. The way of putting it, for the way I do WW, is that I "eat all points coming to me". They are mine, and I am eating them.
And if you can see signatures, I'm doing pretty well. Now, I weigh everything that can be weighed. If I can't weigh it, I measure it. I even am careful about having proper serving sizes of zero point fruits and veggies. If I'm doing everything else perfectly but am going crazy with bananas and unsweetened applesauce and I start gaining, I want to KNOW if I'm accidentally having 15 servings of those things per day. So I'm careful careful careful, while eating every last one of my points.
And, of course, if I hit a true plateau over weeks and weeks, I have an easy place to start changing. Just lower the "extra" points a bit for a month or so, see what happens, etc.
That's
my WW plan.
. I joined the February Challenge too. I liked watching the numbers add up 
Can't find the info anywhere online!
